Hornbill Festival 2026

About Hornbill Festival

The Hornbill Festival is Nagaland's ten-day showcase of all its communities, run by the state government at Kisama Heritage Village, 12 km south of Kohima. In 2026 it opens on Tuesday, 1 December 2026, Nagaland Statehood Day, and closes on 10 December. Each of the state's 17 recognised tribes brings its songs, dances, games, crafts and food to its own morung.

Every community in Nagaland keeps its own festivals through the year. The Angami mark Sekrenyi in February, the Ao mark Moatsü in May, the Sumi mark Tuluni in July. The Hornbill Festival is different. It is run by the state government, and for ten days in December it gathers all of these communities on one hillside, which is why Nagaland Tourism calls it the Festival of Festivals.

How the festival began

The Government of Nagaland held the first Hornbill Festival in 2000. Its Department of Tourism and Department of Art and Culture still run it. The aim was twofold: to bring visitors to the state, and to keep in view traditions that many villages had let slip. The Kohima district administration's page on Kisama links this to older practices that faded after the Naga hills turned Christian.

The festival opens every year on 1 December, Nagaland Statehood Day, the anniversary of the state's inauguration in 1963. It used to run for seven days. In 2013, the golden jubilee of statehood, it was stretched to ten, and it has kept the 1 to 10 December window since.

Its home is Kisama Heritage Village, also called the Naga Heritage Village, on a slope above the highway about 12 km south of Kohima. The name is stitched together from its two neighbouring villages: Ki from Kigwema, sa from Phesama, and ma from both.

Two recent years broke the pattern. In 2020 the festival went fully virtual because of Covid-19, broadcast on Doordarshan and private channels using archive footage. In 2021, security forces killed 14 civilians near Oting and in Mon town, in Mon district, on 4 and 5 December. The Konyak Union and other tribal bodies withdrew from Kisama, and on 7 December the state cabinet called off the rest of the festival in mourning. It is one reason to keep a Hornbill greeting about the festival, not politics.

Why the hornbill

The festival takes its name from the great hornbill, a large forest bird with a heavy casque on its bill, which turns up in the folklore of most Naga communities. Its tail feathers have long gone into headgear as a mark of honour, and among some communities the way a man wore them signalled what he had achieved.

The stories differ from tribe to tribe. Sumi Nagas tell of the lovers Kivigho and Kahuli, in which he becomes a hornbill. An Ao tale describes a long war between the villages of Nokrang and Longkhum over the bird. The Liangmai tell of a boy, Talungding, who turns into a hornbill and punishes a cruel stepmother.

It is not Nagaland's state bird, though. That is Blyth's tragopan, a pheasant. The great hornbill, listed as Vulnerable worldwide, is the state bird of Arunachal Pradesh and Kerala. In Nagaland the demand for feathers has cost it dearly: a Wokha forest officer wrote in 2023 that hornbills have been hunted to local extinction across the state. At a hornbill conservation run held during the 2023 festival, a state minister urged people to switch to replica feathers, and a senior forest official called for real feathers to be banned. Many headdresses you see at Kisama now carry artificial feathers.

What happens at Kisama

Each tribe has its own morung at Kisama, built in its own style. In a traditional village the morung was a dormitory and a school, where young people learnt crafts, songs, stories and the skills the village needed. Some villages kept separate morungs for men and women.

By day, troupes from each community take turns in the arena with songs, dances and re-enactments of farming and war rituals. Around them run archery, Naga wrestling, indigenous games, craft and handloom stalls, food and herbal medicine stalls, a flower show, and eating contests with Naga king chilli and pineapple. In the evenings the action moves into Kohima, where the Kohima Chamber of Commerce and Industry runs a night carnival with hundreds of food stalls, many from self-help groups.

Music has its own track. For years the state's Music Task Force ran the Hornbill International Rock Contest at the hockey ground of Indira Gandhi Stadium in Kohima, with a winner's prize of Rs 10 lakh in 2017. It now runs as the Hornbill Music Festival. For the 2026 edition, the state and the Task Force for Music and Arts added a band contest in Delhi, Ticket to Hornbill, whose winner earns a slot at the December festival.

Hornbill shows each community's festival but does not replace it. Nagaland Tourism lists these dates for some of them.

If you are going

The dates are fixed at 1 to 10 December, and Nagaland Tourism publishes the day-by-day programme shortly before the festival. Entry to Kisama is ticketed: in 2025 it was Rs 150 for every visitor, up from Rs 50 for locals the year before.

Permits matter more than tickets. Anyone who is not an indigenous inhabitant of Nagaland, Indian or foreign, needs an Inner Line Permit under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation of 1873. Apply on the state's ILP portal. A domestic tourist permit costs Rs 200 for 30 days. Foreign nationals also need a Protected Area Permit. In 2025 the Centre relaxed it for the ten festival days only, ending at midnight on 10 December, while nationals of Afghanistan, China and Pakistan still needed prior approval from the Home Ministry. Check whether the relaxation is repeated before you book.

What to write to a Naga friend or colleague

Most people in Nagaland are Christian, close to 88 per cent at the 2011 census, so Hornbill runs straight into the weeks before Christmas. A December message can carry both. There is also no single Naga language. English is the official language and Nagamese, a creole drawn from Assamese, is what people from different tribes use with each other. If you want to write a line in your friend's own language, ask them for it. That question alone tells them you have noticed.

See also the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples in August, and the calendar for 2026.

How to wish someone on Hornbill Festival

A good Hornbill wish is specific and easy-going. Mention the trip home to Kohima, a friend's troupe performing at Kisama, the food at their community's morung, or the Christmas season that follows. Use the person's own community name, such as Ao, Sumi or Angami, if they use it. Leave out words like exotic or costume, headhunter jokes and politics. On 1 December, a combined Statehood Day and Hornbill greeting works well.

Write a few lines in your own words, pick a design and share it as one link on WhatsApp, Instagram or anywhere else. They open an animated card made just for them, with no app and no sign-up.

Language tip: English, Nagamese + tribe's language.

When is Hornbill Festival in 2026 and 2027?

Hornbill Festival is on 1 Dec every year. Only the weekday changes. Hornbill Festival runs 10 days.

• 2026Tuesday 1 Dec – 10 Dec
• 2027Wednesday 1 Dec – 10 Dec

Frequently asked questions